


Metropolitan Sentinel

by Dolimir



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-17
Updated: 2011-05-17
Packaged: 2017-10-19 12:09:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/200702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dolimir/pseuds/Dolimir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A sentinel is overwhelmed and hopes to find some answers with a college professor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Metropolitan Sentinel

**Author's Note:**

> This story was written for Lilguppee, who won my story in the Help_Haiti auction.
> 
> I'd also like to thank Kungunurse, Starwatcher and Aithine. They had awesome insights and made several great catches. The muse may have come back, but she definitely needs someone to help back in shape and these guys did an wonderful job. Any errors are most certainly their fault. Bwahahahaha. I kid. I couldn't stop picking at this story. Hopefully, I didn't undo any of their good work!

“I just don’t understand what’s going on.”

Captain Joel Taggart watched his friend pace back and forth in front of him, but didn’t attempt to offer any words of comfort. While Blair was always the first person to offer support when his friends were going through a crisis, he had an extremely difficult time accepting help from others. And though it killed Joel to wait, he vowed he wouldn’t say a word until Blair was able to verbalize his problem.

Joel had tried to be respectful of Blair’s privacy when he first started noticing subtle changes in his detective’s behavior, initially believing that Blair was just going through a rough patch. But when the normally effervescent detective started to withdraw from his co-workers, Joel decided enough was enough. He had been Blair’s friend longer than he’d been his captain, and he’d be damned if he’d let a friend flounder in silence. Grabbing a six-pack of beer, Joel waited until Blair’s Friday shift was over, then simply followed him home and waited for Blair to start talking.

Blair stopped his pacing and gave Joel a beseeching look. “It’s not like I ever tried to repress my senses.”

“I know.” And Joel did know. Blair’s seminars about using all of one’s senses while investigating crimes were always standing-room only. In fact, several of the other precincts had made requests for Blair to come and speak to their detectives as well.

“Hell, Naomi not only embraced my senses, but she made it a point to help me hone them as much as we could.”

The mention of Blair’s mother’s name surprised Joel. Blair rarely talked about his mother, but her murder had changed the course of his life. And although he was driven by his need for justice, he rarely discussed his reasons why.

Joel raised one finger, but then shook his head and lowered it as he changed his mind.

“No,” Blair said softly. “Go ahead.”

“You said you and Naomi used to work on sharpening your senses when you were a kid.”

“Yeah.”

Taking a deep breath, Joel released it slowly, not quite sure how to proceed with his thought. “How much time have you spent working on your senses since she died?”

Blair looked at him incredulously. “I use my senses every day, Joel. I--”

Joel raised his hand and was thankful when Blair immediately fell silent. “You use them every day, granted. But have you worked on making them better…since her death?”

Blair leaned against the kitchen island, his normally expressive face blank.

“I’d like you to try thinking like an athlete for a moment. Athletes are constantly working on their abilities, trying to make them better, sharper. If you’re the world’s fastest runner, you don’t stop running just because you’re the best. You keep pushing yourself to run just a little bit faster, a little bit further. Yes, your senses are enhanced, but what if you hadn’t reached your full potential at the time of Naomi’s death? What if, like any athlete, you were supposed to continuously work on them, to stretch them?”

Even though Blair didn’t respond, Joel could tell that he was processing his idea.

“It’s been…what…four years since--”

“Five.”

“Five,” Joel repeated softly. “Maybe what you’ve experienced is an upgrade of sorts.”

“An upgrade?”

“Yes. What if you now possess the range and strength of abilities you should have had if you’d been practicing all along?”

Confused blue eyes met his. “But why now?”

“Why not now?”

“I mean, what could have caused it?”

“I have no idea.” Joel slapped his hands together once, then flinched when he saw his friend recoil. “Sorry.”

Blair nodded with a pained smile.

“You started having problems after the Harmon stakeout, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Didn’t you pull an overnighter?”

“Yes, but I’ve had plenty of solitary overnight stakeouts before. Why now?”

Joel shook his head. “I wish I knew.”

Blair rubbed the palms of his hands over his face. “It’s too much, Joel.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean it’s too much at once; I’m overloading. Maybe if I had continued pushing my senses I’d be in a good place right now, but we both know I didn’t. And now I have five years of growth plopped into my lap and I’m drowning in sensory overload. I actually grayed out this week.”

Joel startled and sat up straighter. “When?”

“At the Watson crime scene. I was concentrating on my sight, when I caught a waft of a smell I couldn’t identify. Kelpecki said that I stood over the body for almost ten minutes, just staring at it, before he jostled me. I have no memory of what I was concentrating on.”

“I’m sure--”

Blair started to pace again. “No, Joel. Don’t you get it? If I gray out at the wrong time I could put not only myself in danger, but others as well.”

“So what are you going to do?”

Joel saw the answer in Blair’s face and held up his hand, cutting off Blair’s response before he could speak. “What do they call a person with five enhanced senses?”

“What?” Blair looked at him incredulously.

“Humor me.”

Blair cupped the back of his head and slowly let the air out of his lungs before he spoke. “According to my research, they’re called sentinels, based on--” Blair stopped when Joel waved his hand dismissively.

“Well, according to my research, there’s a professor at Rainier who has made sentinels his focus of study.” Joel smiled smugly when Blair’s jaw dropped open in shock.

“What? How?”

“I spoke to Tim in Homicide. He’s dating a woman who works in the Anthropology department. I guess he was talking about your abilities when she got all excited and told him about this professor. She was hoping for a chance to introduce you two to each other.”

Blair swallowed hard. “You think this guy can help me?”

“I don’t know,” Joel said truthfully. “But before you do anything drastic, I think you owe it to yourself to at least meet with the man.”

Joel felt something in his chest unclench when Blair nodded. Maybe, just maybe, this situation could be salvaged after all.

*-*-*-*

Jim was going to kill her. He could. In fact, he knew over twenty-five ways to maim, incapacitate, or end her young freshman life with nothing more than the pen he was holding in his hands.

Of course, the university frowned on professors killing their students, but he was pretty sure that once he explained things to the authorities, they’d let him off with a slap on the wrist.

Internally, he sighed. Of course they wouldn’t let him go. That was a pipe dream. Instead, the papers would probably scream about Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome and dig up all the sordid details on his botched Peruvian mission. He could even imagine being the focus of some news segment that would report on tragic soldiers who lost it after returning to civilian life. His father would sigh, even as he wrote out a check for the best attorney in town, and ask him, for the thousandth time, why he hadn’t joined Stephen and him in the family business instead of pursuing a life in academia.

“Professor Ellison, are you even listening to me?”

“No, Tiffany, I’m not.” He forced himself to lay the pen on his desk before he leaned slightly forward. “I announced at the beginning of term, and in every class period preceding and during the time that you were supposed to be working on the project, that I wouldn’t allow any late submissions. You might have realized that if you’d bothered to show up to class every once in a while.”

“But my father will--”

“I don’t care who your father is, Tiffany. Rules are rules and they apply to everyone, including special princesses.”

Tiffany’s eyes flashed in anger, but Jim slashed his hand forward, cutting her tirade off before it started.

“What you may not realize is that I have two cameras running in this room at all times, so you won’t be going to anyone in the administration claiming I sexually harassed you or whatever petty little blackmail scheme you’ve dreamed up. If you try, I’ll show the dean--and no doubt your father--today’s tape. Face it, Tiffany, it’s time for you to grow up and deal with the consequences of your decisions. You don’t come to class, you don’t pass. End of story. Now, if you wish, you may attend my class again next semester and I’ll wipe the slate clean and you can try again. Or you may choose to accept the grade you’ll be given and move on with your life. The choice is yours.”

Tiffany made an inarticulate sound of rage as she grabbed her backpack and flounced out of his office. Jim rubbed his eyebrows, trying to stave off a headache, and wondered if it wouldn’t have been more satisfying to stick the pen in Junior Miss where the sun never shined.

There was a light tap on his door and Jim groaned in response. “Yes?”

The door opened to reveal the head of a man with curly, sable hair. “Professor Ellison?”

Jim sighed. Yet another apathetic student he didn’t recognize because they hadn’t bothered showing up for class, but now realized how much trouble they were in as the semester was drawing to a close.

“Do you have a moment?”

“It depends.”

The student stepped further into his office. “On what?”

Jim took in the torn jeans and the long hair and tried to suppress another sigh. This one apparently thought college meant trying to recreate the sixties. “On what sort of song and dance number you intend to give me. I really hate the new bleatings you kids are trying to pass off as music these days. I’m much more a Motown man myself.”

The student grinned. “Good to know. By the way, my name is Sandburg. Blair Sandburg.”

Great. Now the kid thought he had made a connection with the grumpy old professor. Jim stood and walked around his desk, intent on plucking that notion straight from the kid’s head before he got started on his frontal assault.

“I’m really getting sick and goddamn tired of you guys thinking you can waltz into my office the last week of class, expecting me to bend over backwards to help you achieve some sort of acceptable grade, when you obviously didn’t give a rat’s ass about stumbling out of whatever drug-influenced haze you’ve been living in to actually attend a lecture or two.”

Sandburg raised his hands in a warding gesture. “Hey, man, I think there’s been some sort of mistake here.”

“Sure there has. You’ve just realized you partied away a whole semester and now it’s time to face your parents, and the thought of facing mommy and daddy has you doing some last minute scrambling.”

Sandburg’s face became blank, although Jim could tell he hit a nerve. Clearing his throat, the student looked at him, frowning as he tried to control his anger, but not succeeding very well. “As I said, man, I think there’s been some sort of mistake. I’ll just let you be.”

As Sandburg turned toward the door, Jim turned as well, intent on returning to his chair. “You do that you neo-hippie, vegetarian, holistic, tree-hugging punk,” he muttered beneath his breath.

Before he realized what was happening, Jim found himself pinned to the wall behind his desk.

“Look, you uptight, militaristic, ignorant, Republican asshole; against my better judgment I came to talk to you because you’re supposedly the local expert on sentinels. But I’d rather find myself in a mental institution than have to deal with such an arrogant know-it-all. It’s no wonder this university has such a high attrition rate.”

With that, Sandburg turned and stomped out of the office.

Jim swallowed hard. It had been years since anyone had gotten the drop on him. He had been an Army Ranger, for God’s sake, and even done a stint as a CIA liaison. How in the world had… Wait.

 _But I would rather find myself in a mental institution than have to deal with such an arrogant know-it-all._

Was the kid implying he had heightened senses?

He shook his head again. Everyone in the anthropology department knew what his thesis was about. Just because he had never had a student use this tack before…

He shook his head. The kid hadn’t mentioned a word about sentinels, and Jim knew he’d been stewing over his encounter with Tiffany, and Noah and April before her. Mentally, he went over the attendance roster for all of his classes and realized he’d never seen the name Sandburg before.

“Crap.”

Jim patted his pockets to make sure he had his keys, then locked his office door and headed outside, hoping he could catch Sandburg before he got too far.

From atop the building steps, Jim spotted the man stomping across the university green, obviously still steaming about their encounter.

Jim ran down the steps and chased after him, thanking every tribal deity he could think of when he noticed Sandburg slowing down. Each step Sandburg took looked as if he were walking through crystallized molasses. Finally, he came to a stop in the middle of the street. Frowning, Jim focused in the direction that Sandburg was facing and spotted a hummingbird flitting amongst the flowering bushes.

“Hey.” Jim picked up his pace. “You need to be careful that you don’t zone out.”

But Sandburg gave no indication that he’d heard the advice.

Jim was almost to the curb when he spotted a car heading down the street. There was no way the driver could miss seeing Sandburg. But just as the thought occurred to Jim, the tires squealed as the driver gunned the gas.

Without thinking, Jim lurched forward and grabbed Sandburg’s arm, yanking him with all of his might, and all but flinging him onto the grass.

When he realized the car was still pointed at him, Jim dove for the curb.

“Hey. What the hell, man?” Atkins, one of the football players Jim taught, appeared out of nowhere and banged on the hood of the car. Whoever was driving decided they didn’t want to tangle with two hundred and fifty pounds of angry linebacker and slammed the car in reverse before zipping back the way it came.

“Are you alright, Professor?” Atkins carefully helped Jim to his feet.

“Yes, Thomas. Thank you. I don’t know what would’ve happened if you hadn’t shown up.”

“I don’t know who that asshole was, but I think I got his plate number.”

“Do me a favor, would you, and report it to security?”

“Of course, sir.”

Jim scrambled over to where Sandburg was lying.

“Is he okay? He didn’t get hit, did he?”

Jim shook his head as he quickly ran his hands over Sandburg’s limbs, looking for any indication of a break. “I don’t think so.”

Think, Ellison. Sandburg was focused on the hummingbird. If he truly was a sentinel, chances were he got locked into his vision mode. Making his movements subtle, so as not to draw attention to them, Jim gave Sandburg a tiny but painful pinch on the underside of his arm.

“Ouch! Shit!” Sandburg startled into a sitting position.

“Are you okay?” Atkins asked as he bent over the two of them.

“Sure. What?” Sandburg’s gaze darted about, trying to take in the scene around him.

“Any idea why someone might want to run you down?”

“Well, I am a… Wait. Someone tried to run me down?”

“Yeah, and probably would have succeeded if it hadn’t have been for Professor Ellison here.”

Sandburg turned to face him.

Jim held out his hand. “Hi, my name is Jim Ellison and I believe we may have gotten off on the wrong foot today.”

Blair blinked at him, then looked up at Atkins towering over them before he looked back at Jim’s face, then toward his outstretched hand. Slowly, he reached his own hand forward and grasped Jim’s. “Hi, Jim, I’m Blair.”

“You came to see me today because you’re a--”

Jim stopped when he saw Blair’s eyebrows furl together.

“Uh, is there somewhere private we could talk?”

Blair swallowed once then nodded. “Yeah, just let me make a call first.”

*-*-*-*

Jim fidgeted nervously in the passenger seat of the most hayseed truck he’d ever laid eyes upon. Blair must have noticed his discomfort because he grinned unrepentantly. “Don’t diss Bess, man. She and I have been through a lot together.”

“You’ve had her for a long time, then?”

Blair chuckled. “Well, I’ve had her since January.”

“It’s only May now.”

“Yeah, well, I may be a little rough on cars.”

Both of Jim’s eyebrows shot upward, but he decided discretion was the better part of valor.

His eyebrows stayed up as they turned into the underground parking lot of the downtown police station. Blair acknowledged several waves with a nod of his head.

“Um, what are we doing here?” Jim finally asked.

“I work here.”

“You work here? Here at the precinct?”

“Yeah, man. I’m a detective in Major Crimes.” At Jim’s disbelieving look, Sandburg added, “Which is why I’m including my captain in on the discussions.”

Jim shook his head and wondered what sort of rabbit’s hole he’d fallen down.

*-*-*-*

 

“Captain Joel Taggart, I’d like you to meet Doctor James Ellison.”

“Jim, please.” He reached forward and shook the Captain’s hand.

Taggart took a seat at the head of the conference table. “I’m not sure why you brought him down to the station, Blair.”

“Well, the professor and I got off to a rocky start and I figured it wouldn’t hurt to have a mediator present. And I may have also grayed out while on campus and may or may not have had someone try to run me down with their vehicle. So, at the time, it seemed like a good idea to have a civilian present in the room when I informed you.” Blair huffed once in amusement, then sat in a chair across from his captain.

Taggart opened his mouth, no doubt to shout, but closed it again when his eyes rested on Jim. “So, Doctor Ellison, you must have realized by now that Blair is a sentinel?”

Jim nodded. “What surprises me is that you know.”

“Why wouldn’t Joel know?” Blair leaned back in his chair and frowned.

“I’m just surprised. I’m not sure I’d tell anyone if our positions were reversed.”

“I’m a cop, man. I have to let my supervisor know what’s going on with me. He can’t watch my back if I’m not upfront with him.”

“That makes sense, I suppose. Who else knows?”

Blair shrugged. “Who doesn’t know?”

Jim raised a hand in surprise. “But what about the city’s prosecutors and judges?”

“What about them?”

“How do you explain being able to see and smell things that average people can’t?”

Blair frowned at him, then looked at Joel for guidance. “Well, I’d say at this point all of them have attended at least one of my seminars so it’s really a moot point.”

“Your seminars?”

Joel leaned forward. “Yes. Blair conducts a ‘How to Make Your Senses Work for You’ seminar a couple a times a year for the troops. We started inviting the local prosecutors and judges to get them on board as well.”

“So you’re a fully functional sentinel? Sight? Smell? Hearing? Taste? Touch?”

Blair nodded.

“I don’t believe this.” Jim rubbed his face with both hands. “When I was in the military I was stranded in Peru…”

Joel slapped his hands together, then flinched and whispered sorry toward Blair. “That’s where I recognized you from. You were on the cover of--”

“Yes,” Jim quickly confirmed. “When I was in Peru, the village that took me in had a shaman, who kept telling me that my sentinel was back home, right under my nose. I didn’t believe him. I mean, what were the chances of a sentinel being right smack in the middle of metropolitan Cascade?”

Joel chuckled. “Pretty good, I’d say.”

Jim shook his head. “But if you know you’re a sentinel, then why were you looking for me?”

“Well, Jim,” Blair said as he scooted to the edge of his seat, “it’s like this…”

~ End ~


End file.
